


what you know

by Areiton



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon-Typical Violence, M/M, POV Second Person, POV Steve Rogers, Period-Typical Homophobia, Pining, Platonic Soulmates, Soulmates, Steve Rogers Feels, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-14
Updated: 2020-06-14
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:01:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24725686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Areiton/pseuds/Areiton
Summary: This is what you know about soulmates:Not a damn thing.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers, Steve Rogers & Natasha Romanov, Steve Rogers & Sam Wilson, Steve Rogers & Tony Stark
Comments: 6
Kudos: 88





	what you know

This is what you know about soulmates: 

Some find them young. 

~*~ 

You are six years old, fighting mad and bloody faced, when James Barnes swans into your life, larger than life, prettier than Mama, and brilliantly alive. 

You are six years old when he quirks a grin at you, all mischief and smug and you say, “I didn’t need no help.” 

“Got it though, didn’t ya,” he shoots back, and you shiver. You sway and he reaches for you and you don’t quite understand the way your heart trips and tumbles and steadies next to a new thumping heartbeat, the way his eyes go wide. You don’t understand the ache in your knuckles or the way he touches his lip and winces. 

You are six years old, and you don’t know what soulmates means, really, when you meet James Buchanan Barnes. 

~*~ 

This is what you know about soulmates: 

They share pain. 

~*~ 

Bucky always knows when you’re fighting, because he can _feel_ it, the hot bloom of pain when you’re getting punched, the crack of your ribs and the bruises blooming up because you decided to get involved when some asshole got handsy with Dot. 

You know when his Da gets drunk and comes home, beats his anger into Bucky’s ribs, busts his lip, and you think the helpless fury you feel is what he does, when you’re hurting and he’s catching echoes. 

It keeps you outta fights while he heals up, keeps your touch gentle and your voice light until he snaps at you, all brittle bruised fury and you snarl back, and the fragility that ol’ man Barnes beats into him with heavy fists shatters with sharp, love-laced words. 

~*~ 

This is what you know about soulmates: 

It isn’t easy. 

~*~ 

Your Ma had a soulmate, a pretty woman named Eliza that she drew, when you could drag her away from the washing, and the cooking--mostly on the nights when you were sick and couldn’t draw for yourself and Ma would trace Eliza’s features on butcher paper, and you’d watch in awe to see her come to life, this woman you never met, would never meet. 

She had a soulmate, and she married your Da instead, left Eliza in Ireland and he left her in New York, a baby in her belly, for a war that would kill him. 

“Bein’ soulmates don’t mean life is easy, love,” she said and watched Bucky, chasing tomcats in the alley. 

You spit blood on the floor of a dancehall and Bucky tackles a mouthy bastard to the ground, fists flying, rage contorting his face because he called you a fairy, a queer, a fag, and you think about her words and how much you just wanna be left alone with your soulmate. 

Bucky yelps and pain blossoms on your jaw and you wade back into the fight, snarling. 

~*~ 

This is what you know about soulmates: 

They mean happiness. 

~*~ 

Your dirt poor and sick as hell and Bucky works too hard and spends his sabbath at temple with his Ma and sisters, and sits shiva whenever someone dies, and there’s nights when you only stop shivering when he wraps around you, lips pressed to your neck, hands hot on your belly and a heat that isn’t from _him_ licks through you. 

You’re poor and sick and tired and you go days without seein’ him even though you share a tiny apartment but there’s this too--

He kisses you when he slips out. You leave food in the icebox for him, and smile when it’s gone. He wraps around you when your sleepin’ and you know that when you cough, he’ll wake, worried and careful. He knows that when he comes home, exhausted and sad, you’ll be waiting with open arms and quiet. 

You’re tired and your poor and you’re sick--and you are happier than you ever thought you would be. 

~*~ 

This is what you know about soulmates: 

It’s a lonely business. 

~*~ 

Bucky kisses you in your dark apartment and squeezes your hand before he slips away, and he’s beautiful in his uniform, everything you love all packaged up pretty and off to fight for the country you both love, and you ache with it, even before his footsteps fade, a drumbeat that echoes and throbs and promises months of loneliness. 

You hold tight to a promise of a stranger, and the loneliness that chases you through bootcamp and the Rebirth chamber and all across the damn country, while pain blooms on your skin, and a heartbeat not your own flickers in your chest. 

~*~ 

This is what you know about soulmates: 

There’s some things the soul _knows._

~*~ 

Phillips says Bucky is dead and Peggy stares at you with pity in her pretty brown eyes, her mouth set in an unhappy curve and the rain is still coming down. 

But you can feel him, can feel his heartbeat like your own, matching. Can feel the ache in his bones that reminds you of the vita-rays. Can feel the bruises and blood spilt and the pounding in his head, and the dryness of his lips, cracked and bleeding. 

You turn to go and Peggy, she chases you because she’s the smartest dame you know, and you look at her when she says it, again, gently this time. “Your friend is dead, Steve.” 

“He isn’t.” 

Maybe it’s your tone or maybe it’s something in your eyes but she stills, and she stares at you. “How do you know?” 

“He’s my soulmate,” you say and your voice doesn’t shake, because it’s terrified you for years, hiding your male soulmate, because the world doesn’t look kindly on that. Peggy pales, and she takes a half step back, something you won’t think about filling her eyes. “He’s my soulmate,” you say again. “And he’s not dead.” 

~*~ 

This is what you know about soulmates: 

Few survive without the other. 

~*~ 

You rescue him. 

You rescue him and you fight with him, side by side for years, and then it falls apart in a rush of wind and his voice screaming and a fall so long you can’t see the end of it. 

You watch him fall and you want to fall with him. 

You cling to the train, held there by your men, and you ache in your bones, but it’s _your_ ache, _your_ pain, and the heartbeat you know like your own, that has been the match to your own for decades--is quiet. 

They treat you with a quiet fragility that makes you want to scream, the Commandos and Peggy both. Phillips doesn’t know that Bucky was your soulmate, and he’s brusque, almost cruel, and you’re grateful for it, grateful for the mission because if you don’t have that, you’ll put a bullet in your brain, and Bucky spent more than half his life keepin’ you alive, and how the hell is it fair to him, to kill yourself? 

You don’t care about fair, really, you miss him, want to chase him down into that endless fall, to the only place he’s gone that you can’t follow. 

And then there’s bombs and a endless stretch of ice and sea, and you can hear the frantic pain in Peggy’s voice, but you smile as you tip your plane down into the ice and dream you can still feel his heartbeat. 

~*~ 

This is what you know about soulmates: 

The ones who survive--don’t. 

~*~ 

You wake up. 

You shouldn’t, and you hate Fury and Coulson and SHIELD, for waking you, for dragging you into this future you don’t know, don’t want. 

You hate the whole fucking world, because you are in it. 

You wake up and you shouldn’t, and you fight because you aren’t sure what else you can do, and tryin’ to kill yourself didn’t take. 

Sometimes, when you’re lying in your bed in SHIELD’s headquarters, you imagine you can feel a heartbeat, sweet and familiar, thrumming next to yours. 

Ma called ‘em phantom ticks--the heartbeat of your soulmate long after they’d died. She felt them, after Eliza died, after the pain exploded in her head and left her writhing and weak, and then pale, hand clutching her chest. 

You never wanted to. You never asked Bucky about the nights when you were sick, and lingering near death, if he ever felt the aching absence of your heartbeat. 

You hope like hell he didn’t, because this--this is a hell you would never wish on someone you love. 

~*~ 

This is what you know about soulmates: 

They are complicated. 

~*~ 

Your pulse steadies when you meet Natasha, and your breathing slows to match Tony, and you can feel the way that every sense in you reaches for Sam. 

They’re yours and you didn’t even know that was _possible._

“Stark spent a shit ton of time and money learning everything he could about soulmates,” Sam says. “It’s not always romantic, ya know? There are other soulbonds. Ours is platonic.” 

“How do you know?” 

Sam casually cuts his arm open, a shallow stinging cut--and you don’t feel it. 

“Have you--do you have--” 

“Riley,” Sam says, softly. “He was my soulmate, my heart-true soulmate.” 

There’s an ocean of grief there, echoing in his voice and you can’t feel his pain, but you can feel this ache, and you reach out, blindly, and Sam’s hand squeezes yours. 

“You aren’t alone, here,” Sam says. “Stark ain’t my soulmate. Nat’s got Clint. But we’re all yours and your ours, and this world might not be the one you want--but we’re here.” 

You breathe, and there are tears burning in your eyes but you think that maybe--maybe you can learn to live again. 

~*~ 

This is what you know about soulmates: 

You got lucky. 

~*~ 

Natasha is beautiful and brilliant and you adore her. You see echoes of Peggy in her, in the way she fights, free and fierce, and the way she commands the world she walks through, refusing to bend to the men around her. She’s soft with you, teaches you how to make borscht soup and foists Liho on you when she vanishes with her heart-true soulmate for missions and sometimes, for weekends that bring her back to you loose limbed and smiling. Clint is good for her, and it hurts, sometimes, seeing them together, but you’re happy for her. 

Tony is brash and loud and pushy and you fight with him when you aren’t fighting together, and when you are, it’s like fighting side by side with Bucky, an extension of yourself that you didn’t realize you missed, until he’s there, and you feel safe, in the middle of the world gone sideways. He’s pushy and demanding and extravagant, and you take a while to realize it’s because he cares so much it _hurts_ , that he pours every bit of himself into the people he loves, because he can’t help himself. He has two heart-true soulmates, and you think he needs two just to keep him steady, and then you meet them and you’re pretty sure that Rhodey and Pepper and Tony could rule the world if they wanted, or could be dragged out of Tony’s workshop long enough. They match him, wild and brilliant, a genius touched with madness, and it doesn’t show in Rhodey and Pepper as quick, but then you see Pepper facing down the Secretary of Defense, and you see Rhodey _fighting_ and you see them all together and drunk and you don’t know if you're turned on or terrified. 

Sam is quiet and sarcastic and steady, the things you miss most about Bucky without the history. Sam sees _Steve_ , not just the shield and the cowl, not the seventy years of trauma and loss. He shows you the new century--Nat and Tony do too, but Sam shows you a new world that Nat and Tony can’t, shows you the world from the outside looking in, the place that you always found yourself, and it’s different--a sickly queer kid and a black boy--but it’s familiar, too, a different kind of familiar, and you like seeing the world through Sam’s eyes, and ache, seeing the world through Sam’s eyes. 

Sam knows, too, what it’s like to lose the soulmate of your heart, and the night that you tell him about Bucky, you drink until you finally cfy, and fall asleep curled together like puppies, and you feel warm for the first time in years. 

~*~ 

This is what you know about soulmates: 

Not a damn thing. 

~*~ 

You dream, still, sometimes. About a warm body sleeping next to you, and a familiar voice shaping your name and pain blooming across your knuckles and your heart tumbling to match his. 

~*~ 

This is what you know about soulmates: 

Sometimes, the universe gets it right. 

~*~ 

You fight him on a bridge, and pain starbursts against your skin with every blow of your fist, and your heartbeat is erratic and painful and you finally stare and you say, “Bucky?” 

He watches you with wide, terrified eyes, and runs from Sam, and you want to chase. 

When you do--when the helicarriers are smoking in the Potomac and your platonic soulmates are watching with wide, scared, _angry_ eyes, you chase and Bucky runs, and you think the universe got it right, tying you together, a century ago, and keeping that bond through the ice and the torture, and you hope that it’s enough to bring him home. 

Sam chases with you and Tony watches, angry and petulant and finally throwing himself into helping, and Natasha does the same, and you think you got lucky, got so fucking lucky, to have them and this second chance with Bucky. 

~*~ 

This is what you know about soulmates: 

You get one second chance. 

~*~ 

In the end, you chasing him doesn’t mean shit because you're asleep in Sam’s apartment in Harlem and Bucky is sliding through the window and into your bed, and he’s skittish and bloody and won’t meet your eye. 

But his hand is on your heart, and his heartbeat is thrumming along, next to yours and his voice is a familiar welcome home when he says, “I missed you.” 


End file.
